Mississippi creates law banning abortion before some women may know of pregnancy

Mississippi's governor has signed into law one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, making it even more difficult for women to get abortions in a state where only one clinic still operates.

The bill, set to take effect in July, bans abortions after a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat during an ultrasound, unless the mother’s health is at extreme risk. A fetal heartbeat can be heard just six weeks after conception — before some women even know they are pregnant.

Mississippi's new restrictions are part of a reinvigorated nationwide effort to limit access to abortions, propelled by Republican-dominated state legislatures and an increasingly conservative Supreme Court. This year alone, at least 11 states have introduced so-called "heartbeat bills," including Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Missouri.

Kentucky's governor signed a similar measure last week, which a federal judge quickly blocked, questioning its constitutionality. In January, an Iowa court did the same to a 2018 law. Right-wing and religious groups have said they hope this series of legislation will eventually force the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion, and there they will find a sympathetic audience in recently confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

And even before Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed Mississippi's bill, advocates were planning their legal challenge.

"This ban is one of the most restrictive abortion bans signed into law, and we will take Mississippi to court to make sure it never takes effect," said Hillary Schneller, a staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, in a statement.

Schneller, the American Civil Liberties Union and the abortions rights group NARAL have called the law unconstitutional and reminiscent of another recent Mississippi measure banning abortions after 15 weeks. Last year, a federal judge declared that law unconstitutional.

"Lawmakers didn't get the message," Schneller said. "They are determined to rob Mississippians of the right to abortion."

But Bryant said he's ready for the court battle, invoking a future conversation with Saint Peter.

"We will all answer to the good Lord one day," Bryant said in a tweet. "I will say in this instance, 'I fought for the lives of innocent babies, even under threat of legal action.' "

Mississippi's Legislature, where just under 14 percent of lawmakers are women, is the most male-dominated statehouse in the country. Both chambers passed the bill in a mostly party-line vote. In all, 99 men and 11 women supported it. Just one Republican, Rep. Missy McGee, voted against the bill.

"I cannot support legislation that makes such hard line, final decisions for other women," McGee, who considers herself pro-life, told the Clarion Ledger.

But David French, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, argued that "it's time to throw down the gauntlet" and abandon the strategy of limiting abortion rights through "incrementalism." Writing in the institute's magazine, French said fetal heartbeat proposals represent the best opportunities to overturn the Roe decision and establish "an abortion-free zone in the United States of America." One state senator said the bill made Mississippi "the most life-friendly State in the Nation."

For Mississippi's reproductive rights activists, the fetal-heartbeat law is simply the latest offense to women in a state that already makes it extremely difficult to get abortions. Chief among these roadblocks: a severe shortage of clinics. For at least eight years, there has only been one.

That usually means a very long wait list.

Then, when a woman actually gets an appointment, the state requires her to wait at least 24 hours for the procedure. During that time, she also needs state-mandated counseling and an ultrasound. If she's under the age of 18, both her parents or a court must also consent.

"In short, it is already nearly impossible to get an abortion in Mississippi," said Kelly Krause, a Center for Reproductive Rights spokeswoman. "And this law acts as an outright ban, given all the other laws."

On Twitter, a reporter at the Jackson Free Press, a local magazine, took stock of the state's standing in a handful of health statistics: Mississippi has among the highest rates of infant and child mortality, he noted, along with some of the worst clinical care for its youngest residents.

“But,” the reporter, Ashton Pittman said, “we did pass some abortion bans.”